The Godly Man
by Ikonopeiston
Summary: This is a dream sequence concerning Nooj and his fate. Part Two is up in which LeBlanc enters the dream and turns it full circle.
1. Default Chapter

This is part one of a prolonged dream sequence I am considering including in my novel-in-progress. I would appreciate your opinions, if you will be so kind. Warning: there is copious AU permeating this thing although I have, as usual, rewritten much of it to return it to the FFX-2 sources from which it has widely diverged. I have changed the names and places from the ones in my created world back to those you will recognize. However, be aware that this is a dream and is true only to its own internal logic. So please don't expect realism or exactitude here. Thank you for your attention.

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Godly Man - 1 

He was back on his home island, looming like a cloud over the main village. People he did not recognize were coming and going about their ordinary tasks not seeing him, not noticing that he was there. The house of the Brisevant occupied the center of his vision as it did the center of the community. Pasir was long dead, of course, and the new Elder of Elders was just settling comfortably into the role of father and advisor to the young ones. He was a youngish man, one that Nooj thought he should recognize but did not.

Then he saw the two, the dark and the fair walking together toward the house. He saw his own face on the darker one, the hawk beak, the flared brows, the thin lips; the other was less predatory in appearance – more inward and somehow softer with silvery hair and delicate features. Nooj identified the face of LeBlanc cast as a male and his heart leapt. His sons had survived and were now of an age to begin their independent lives. They were ready for their first Missions – it seemed nothing had changed in the world of the his prople. His adventure had altered nothing; all the angst and agony had been for nothing. The boys were tall and strong as those of his race should be and, except for the pale hair and skin of the one, there was nothing to distinguish them from any other young adults of the tribe.

In the peculiar manner of dreams and visions, Nooj found himself standing not far from his progeny, under the tree that shaded the door of the Elder's house. With some hesitation he approached the young men, urgently memorizing their features and movements.

"Good afternoon," he intended to offer a hand to each and discovered, to his chagrin, that he still required the cane in order to stay upright. One would have thought that a dream could have rectified that problem, but he was still maimed and burdened with the machina limbs. "May I know your names?"

"Sir!" It was the darker, older-looking of the two, "We are Ewain and Arden, the sons of Nooj the Undying. And who might we have the pleasure of addressing?"

"I am the Stranger, a pilgrim journeying the surface of Spira," he answered, knowing that such an explanation would not be questioned, treks of this type being a well-accepted practice in the world he had inhabited. He did not believe that would have changed in seventeen years, not if the events through which he had lived had made so little apparent stir.

"May we be of help to you, sir?" This time it was Arden, whose curling hair was escaping the traditional braids . "Is there anything we can do for you?"

"Who is Brisevant now? And is he at home?"

"Sir, Beclem is the name of our Elder and he is at home. Shall we announce you?"

"Not yet; do you have the time to sit and talk with me for a short while? Perhaps in the little glade not far from here."

Arden laughed, "Sir, you must know our island well to know that glade. It's pretty well hidden and was our father's favorite meditation place when he was a boy. Shall we lead or do you know the way?"

Nooj gestured, "I'll follow you."

The three made their way single-file into the foliage, pushing past the undergrowth and finding a path far less well-marked than the older man remembered.

"This glade must not be used very much any more."

"No, sir. Since our father's death not many come here. It's sort of sacred to him."

"I don't want to trespass."

"It's not like that. Nothing formal. It's just that some of the people are a little nervous about it. ... You do know about our father?" Ewain looked back at the Stranger with some concern.

"Yes, I know some stories. Is there more that is said?"

They emerged into the glade and dropped down to the moss that made pleasantly padded seats with tree trunks as backrests.

Ewain took up the question. "We are the sons of the greatest Warrior Spira ever produced, the Undying who came back from Death itself to save the world. I am sure you know he's worshipped in all the temples of Spira and is our protector in battle even now. Some of our people feel that it's sacrilegious to use the places he frequented when he was mortal, but – naturally – that doesn't apply to us." He gave an easy laugh as he leaned back against a huge bole. "We're something of a miracle ourselves. You see, we are twins." He paused as though awaiting an amazed response. "Don't you know that our people never have more than one child at a time? We are the only multiple birth in the history of our race."

Nooj belatedly picked up his cue to ask, "How do you feel about that and who is your mother?"

Arden chimed in, "We enjoy being twins, always someone to talk to, to share with." He affectionately batted at his brother's shoulder. "Mother? We never met her but we know she was a goddess Yevon sent our father so that we could be born. No mortal woman could have withstood his passion or borne his sons."

"I had not heard all this story. Where did you learn it? And from whom?"

"Sir! It's taught in the temples and the schools. We have always known it."

"I see. I've been long out of the world. Will you be good enough to tell me the whole history – if it isn't too much to ask?"

Ewain bowed, not easy from a seated position. "We will be happy to do so. You must have been in a hermitage for a long time although you don't look that old. And you must have a story of your own, judging from your injuries. They're very like those our father suffered. Are you sure you never knew him?"

Nooj nodded his head solemnly. "I never knew the man you describe although I once knew a similar person with a similar name. Now, if you will, tell me his story."

"I'll start," Ewain settled back against his tree, folding his legs and shredding a leaf he had plucked from a nearby bush. "Our father fought for many years against the monster that was Sin. At last, hearing of an opportunity to meet the enemy in single combat at the top of Mount Gagazet, he went unarmed and alone to challenge his foe. There, he was treacherously set upon by Sin and deprived of his left arm and leg – like you, sir. He dragged himself down from the peak and was taken into the presence of Yevon himself who, working without pause, fashioned a new arm and leg for him. These gifts of Yevon enabled him to leap great distances, to run like the winds of a cyclone, to wield a broadsword with just one hand and to call down the elements with a single gesture."

"Now, let me!" Arden burst in happily. "Yevon gave our father a wonderful consort, the goddess LeBlanc. She was the most beautiful of the Immortals and, after our father placed us in her womb, she came here to this island to rest and rule until our birth when she returned to Heaven to await her reunion with our father. By then, our father had heard of the new hiding place of Sin – in the Pit in the Ravine. The monster was lurking there, venturing out only to destroy any human who approached. The bodies of the dead were piled around the Pit like shingle on the sea-shore."

Ewain jostled his brother and interrupted, "So our father rode the lightning into the Pit, alone – he always fought alone – and in a great battle killed the beast, then bursting through the roof of the cave, he used his left leg to leap into Heaven where he embraced our mother and now sits at the side of Yevon and, with him, rules the Universe, particularly the parts where war is being waged. There's lots more details but that's the main story." He sank back with a satisfied grin on his face.

"So Sin is destroyed?"

Arden responded, "The real Sin was killed utterly by our father. There is the Shadow of Sin still but it's just a 'shadow' of the first one." The two boys laughed together and punched one another lightly at what was obviously an old well-practiced joke.

"And you believe all this?" Nooj was amazed; he had thought he would have sired sons of greater intelligence but then realized that their training must have been somewhat less than rigorous.

"Sir! It is the truth!" Ewain was slightly angered and defensive. "Ask anyone on this world. That's what happened."

"So now you are of the age when you will begin your own adventures, is that right? Aren't you the age to start your first Mission?" Nooj looked at them acutely.

"Well, sir, not exactly. We aren't expected to do that since we are the sons of Nooj the Undying. We are expected to stay here until it's our turn to go to Bevelle and be the Hierophant. It'll be the first time that office has been held by two at once!"

"You're not going to be Warriors? I thought all of this tribe served in that position for the first part of their lives."

"That was the way it was before our father. We are unique so we have unique duties. We're too valuable to risk in battle. That's what the Council says and the Brisevant, too."

"But won't that waste all the years you spent learning to use weapons and to defend yourselves?"

"Oh, we never did any of that; we're trained in governing and theology. Where have you been for the last decade or so?"

Nooj struggled to his feet, using his cane and the tree against which he had propped himself. "I've been away on a long pilgrimage and met few people and none who were politically aware. All you've said is strange to me and not the way I remember things before I started my trip. I remember a man who was a Warrior and who died in a foray on Mount Gagazet. But that was just a man, one who was revived by the skills of the Al Bhed and who was as crippled as I am and who lived in pain until his final death in the Pit of Chaos. His consort was no goddess but a good and beautiful woman who devoted herself to his service, abandoning her riches to be with him, and who bore the two of you as a token of her love for him. This is the Nooj I remember, not this deity you show me."

Ewain stood as well, his face flushed with anger. "Sir! You are my senior and for that I must respect you but you are deceived and blasphemous in your so-called memories of our father."

Arden intervened between the two, "Perhaps it was another of a similar name. Or perhaps your memories are muddled due to your injuries and long isolation. Will you tell us your story, sir?"

Nooj raised a rueful brow, "My story is short and brutal. I was wounded, as you see, during a battle with Sin. The machina devices I sport were made by the Al Bhed, as were the heart and lung that keep me alive. That is all."

"You were a Warrior? You're clearly of our race. Have you come home to make the Great Turn?"

"No, I haven't finished my journey. There's still another length to go. Now, may I meet your Brisevant?"

They were seated in the cool pleasantly shadowed room set aside in the house of the Brisevant for receiving guests. Beclem, who had not been expecting a caller, was dressed informally and was somewhat uneasy at being caught thus unprepared.

"Welcome to the island. You are obviously one of us – are you from one of our colonies on the mainland?" He addressed the young/old man across from him.

"Beclem, do you not know me?" The visitor asked. He shifted his cane and stretched the machina left leg with an awkward movement.

"You look familiar but I can't quite place you in my mind. Where did we meet? And how may I serve you?"

"It's of no matter; I've just come from talking with Ewain and Arden. They tell me strange things. Is it true that they are exempt from the custom of serving as Warriors for a period of time?"

"That's well known all over Spira. They are the twin sons of Nooj the Undying and, as such, have certain privileges. How can you not know this? Have you been living in seclusion for the past two decades?"

"I am on a pilgrimage which has kept me apart from the world for a while. But I do remember Nooj – just not the Nooj the boys describe. Most things seem to have changed since his death."

Beclem shook his head benevolently, "We don't consider him dead. He is with Yevon, watching and protecting. Gods don't die."

"You didn't consider him dead the first time when he was reassembled by the Al Bhed. But he was dead in spite of the elaborate charade that was played out around him. He's no god - Beclem, I know! Look at me! Look at my arm and my leg; you must remember this cane and these spectacles. I have a machina heart and lung inside me and I was felled by a sand-bear in front of your eyes. You saved me and chastised me for dropping my pistol and trying to die. Beclem! I am Nooj! I was your captain and friend. Look at me!"

The Brisevant started up in anger at the sacrilege, then paused, half risen from his chair. He stared at his visitor unbelievingly, and then suddenly fell back onto his cushions with a gasp. "It can't be you. You were lost to this world seventeen years ago next month. I won't forget the day. LeBlanc was mad with grief and I brought her here where she stayed until the boys came. It can't be you."

"What has become of LeBlanc?"

"She went back to Guadosalam after the birth of the twins and has settled into seclusion, seeing no one and wearing only black, mourning her loss."

"I shall find her. Now, do you recognize me, Beclem, or must I show you the scars you will surely recognize?"

Beclem still stared in amazement. "I know you, now; you look like yourself again. You didn't when you came in. Did you tell your sons who you are?"

"No, I can't live up to the image the church has planted in their minds and I won't try – not yet. We know this is only a dream. And I'm glad of it. The boys are a great disappointment. They are too credulous and have no curiosity. You've reared them badly. All of you."

"I know but we had to express our grief someway so we cosseted the only part of you we had left. I'm sorry we did it so stupidly."

"And how did you become Brisevant and when did you become so old?"

Beclem scratched his head, disarranging several of his braids, "I was the only one who had known you well and we had to have someone in office who could pray to you on familiar terms. Yes, this must be a dream since you are still the same as when you went to the Pit seventeen years ago. Do the dead not age as we the living do?"

"I'm not sure since I don't feel any more dead than I did when I was first revived by the Al Bhed. I think I am just sleeping and that none of this has happened yet. I plead with you, if it does start happening, after I die – don't do this to my sons. Bring them up as we were and let them learn to use the weapons they'll need to survive. Don't tell them the fairy tales you've concocted about me. Just tell them their father died as many do, fighting against the great enemy of our kind. Now, tell me what occurred when I went into the Pit."

"I was there in the camp, you know, when you arrived. You ignored me for the first day – just to be safe and then the next day you announced that you were going alone into the Pit and Kinoc didn't even try to stop you. You took that heavy gun with the twisted bayonet and went in. We gathered at the entrance and listened. After a long time we heard the sound of battle but not the firing of the gun. Then there was silence and after another long while, a group of us crept inside. I found your weapon abandoned in the first chamber and knew that you had done what you said you intended to do. I wept as I ran but kept on running ahead of the others to the end of the cave. I could smell the blood before I reached it and knew you were dead. The body of the monster was there, all right; it was shredded – you must have done it with your machina hand alone and I saw what there was left of you. Nooj!" There was no hiding the anguish in his voice, "I couldn't recognize anything except the arm and leg! The creature must have torn you apart as it died. What else could we tell the people except that you had ascended? To know all the details of what had happened would have created a maelstrom of horror and grief. We did the best we could."

Nooj had grown steadily more livid as the story progressed until he looked like the specter he, in fact, was. "You should have had a better plan. I had warned you. You had the time to prepare. So you deified me since there wasn't enough left to bury. What did you do with my remains – leave them in the cave?"

"Yes. And we sealed it."

"At least that was sensible. No point in dragging them out. But you have to make amends now. Start dismantling this theocracy and for pity's sake, take me out of your pantheon. I'm very uncomfortable there."

"We can't! Spira will fall apart. There are entire sectors of our society build on the worship of you. There are cults of Deathseekers, both male and female, our kind and others, who strive to emulate you and fill our armies with passionate Warriors. You've become a part of our culture."

Nooj grew even paler, "If you won't then I must. I refuse to be remembered like this. Everything I ever cherished has been perverted and made false. And you let it happen."

"We didn't know how to stop it. You must understand – when you went into that Pit, the world was on a pivot and when you were killed, it spun madly and we had to hold on any way we could. You were our braking mechanism. We've found a kind of stability now and daren't risk it.

Nooj seemed not to hear, "This must be stopped. I will not be a god – I will not sacrifice my death as I yielded my life for the good of the state."

'What do you want of us?" Beclem's voice was heavy with resignation. "We can't resurrect you again and do it all over."

There was a prolonged pause as the two men considered the strangeness of their situation. Beclem watched his fingers as they scuttled across the desk, burrowing into stacks of papers and flicking at pens until they rolled across the surface. "This is surely a dream; I wasn't this old a few minutes ago."

"Yes, it's my dream and I want it to go my way."

"What do you want us to do about your sons?"

Nooj did not answer at once. He was remembering what he had seen in the minds of the two – the lack of intellectual curiosity and skepticism, the all too common credulity, the overall dullness of spirit that made him seriously question their paternity. If they were his fruit, and he had no grounds on which to challenge it, it would be the act of a loving father to erase them.

When Nooj raised his head to give his instructions to Beclem, he discovered that he was alone in a cold, echoing space he did not recognize for the moment before he identified the catacombs beneath the temple that dominated the center of Bevelle.


	2. Part Two Conclusion

This is the second half of the dream sequence. I reiterate my note that this is coherent only within its own dream logic. Since, obviously few are bothering to read this, I am grateful to those of you who take the time to give it a look. In spite of the lack of encouragement, I shall almost certainly include it in the novel – if I ever finish it.

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**Part Two**

The man with the cane made his painfully slow way up the endless flights of stairs to the level at which lifts were active. From there, he emerged into the temple proper, all dim with candlelight and fogged with incense. He passed unnoticed by the priests standing like swathed pillars in their muffling robes. Statuary littered the site, forests of statues looming over the scattered groups of worshippers, each herded by its own gliding cicerone muttering through his layers of collars and hoods. In the center of the sanctuary, standing apart from the rest, was a colossus, heroic in its pose and attitude. It depicted a man – his weight resting on his left leg which seemed about to propel him upwards, his left hand holding a great sword above his head as though pointing to the heavens, the right hand extended as if blessing the crowds gathered beneath the pedestal, his hair loose and lifted in a cloud around his head which was tilted so as to gaze ever upward with a beatific expression. The huge figure was nude with a slight suggestion of machinery about the left arm and leg.

With an abrupt shock, Nooj realized that the figure was meant to be him, transfigured and made divine. Carved on the base was the inscription 'Nooj the Undying, Defender of the Powerless'. All around the image, people were kneeling, prostrating themselves, beating their breasts, wailing. He couldn't make out just what they were begging for but it sounded as if most of them were whining for success in some endeavor or another. It didn't seem to matter that they were praying to a War God; the act alone seemed enough to satisfy their need for contact with the spiritual. He watched curiously as a woman nearing the statue drew a knife from her belt and, with a smooth movement, slit her own throat. Immediately, a certain number of the other worshippers yelped in approval and fell to lauding her act as two of a uniformed crew hastened to collect the body and carry it away and another pair bent to wipe the blood from the floor.

Nooj turned to a nearby priest who had not moved during the episode. "What was that all about? Why did she do that?"

"Oh, that was just one of the Deathseekers; we get two or three every day who come to die at the feet of their patron." The priest replied casually.

"But, that's not what it's about. Deathseekers can't kill themselves – they have to die in a battle of some sort, preferably a worthy one." Nooj almost spluttered.

The priest turned and looked carefully at him before grinning. "You don't look old enough to still believe that. That's the old way – out of fashion for almost twenty years. Times have changed and so have the Deathseekers."

"What becomes of the bodies?"

"We give them back to the families if they want them and come get them. After we've held them for three days, we burn the left-overs in the main furnace – helps heat this place. Good economics."

"And you, do you believe in all this? Do you worship this...?" He waved his good hand at the statue and its adorers.

"As much as anything. He did kill the thing in the Pit and he did disappear after he did it. Who's to say that he didn't ascend and become a god? It doesn't cost anything to say a prayer or two to him and burn a little incense."

"Would you kill yourself like that woman did?"

"No. I'm not a member of that cult. I'm just a simple priest of Yevon/Nooj."

Nooj persevered, "But the statue looks nothing like him and the stories of the Pit are lies. He used a cane and couldn't see without spectacles. He was as crippled as I am and never thought of being a god."

"Now, you're talking sedition and blasphemy. We know what he was and we know what he did. Why are you trying to tamper with the faith of the faithful?"

Nooj did not attempt to answer the man's suspicions but instead turned away and moved as quickly as he could down the wide aisle. When he came at last into the freshness of the outside, he breathed deeply and looked at the individuals strolling around the broad plaza. To his bitter amusement, he saw another of the statues to his transmogrified self – a near duplicate of the one in the heart of the temple. He turned to a passer-by to attempt reason as a counter-irritant and suddenly realized that the man had no ears. He spun around to survey the others, squinting to make out their features and saw that none of them had ears. As he watched, disbelieving, the faces of the men and women walking in the area seemed to melt and metamorphose; ears disappeared into the sides of the head, mouths stretched and began bleating demands and begging favors, the eyes narrowed and looked only upward, noses shrank and blended into the flatness of the facial planes. A shadow fell across his vision and he glanced up to see the monstrous statue of himself step down from the pedestal and, the enormous face still directed toward the sky and the sword still uplifted, begin crushing the worshippers beneath its bare feet. He tried to run but his gait became ever more clumsy and he felt himself stumble, falling into the canal that bordered the open space. He fell through the crackling crystal surface and beneath the water into a shadowy blue-tinged airless world.

In Guadosalam, a thin woman swathed in black sat in a blue shadowed room gazing with unseeing eyes at the hands loosely clasped in her lap. She seemed to have been sitting in this room, in this chair, in this position for a long time, perhaps for as long as anyone could remember. A casual observer would think her to be a life sized doll placed in that pose to demonstrate some concept of aesthetic sorrow or to show the proper use of the chair and the room for she did not move or even seem to breathe.

Nooj remained as still as she. He was leaning against the wall, facing her and watching with the care of an squire at the altar on the night before his investiture. He, too, was as motionless as a mannequin and to an observant eye the pair of them would have formed a tableau that might well have been titled "Loss and His Consort, Sorrow."

Finally, when he knew who he was and who she had to be, he spoke, "LeBlanc, it is I."

The woman did not stir, only lifting her eyelids and fixing her blank stare on his face.

He moved to her side and, kneeling awkwardly, took her hand in his and kissed the palm with the greatest tenderness. "LeBlanc, it is I – Nooj. I am here, back with you." He wound his fingers in the short loose curls he had so often caressed and turned her face toward him. "Look at me, LeBlanc. I am Nooj."

Her pale lips parted and she visibly inhaled. A voiceless whisper escaped her and she tried again. "Nooj. Is this a dream?"

"Yes, but it's real too. You can touch me and we can embrace. It is our dream and we can use it as we wish."

Like a wax figure in a sun-struck diorama, she seemed to melt in the chair, collapsing all at once into a boneless heap. He tried to gather her up but was unable to collect her in his clumsy grasp. "LeBlanc! It's me. Don't do this."

She pushed herself away from the chair and and threw herself on her knees before him, clinging to him as though she would never let him go again. For a timeless while, they knelt there together, closely entwined and silent.

At last, she rose to her feet and extending her hand, helped him to stand beside her. "How can this happen? You died in the Pit. I was told that you were dead, this time with no hope of resurrection. So I went to your island to bear our sons among your people and left them there. How can you be here?"

"This is no resurrection; it's a dream and it can last as long as a dream will last. We can make that forever or only a moment. Our choice. Forget everything except me and I'll remember only you. That way the dream will last; those are the rules."

She nodded gravely. "I had not known the rules but the ones you say seem right to me. Let it last." She wound her arms around his neck and heard the resounding clang of the falling cane as he pulled her to him.

The garden of LeBlanc's house in Guadosalam was blooming in full, all the bushes and trees and hedges and beds blooming in season and out. The lovers walked along the paths among the perfume of the blossoms crushed beneath their feet. They had spoken little, lest they disturb the fabric of the dream.

She leaned against his shoulder, her silver gown glowing in the starlight, "Did you know you are now a god and that I am a goddess?"

"I had heard that and I've seen the statues of me. Somehow, I never realized I was so abundantly muscled or had features of such divine symmetry. Where are your statues? What do you think they will make of you?"

She giggled, "I can't imagine. I expect they'll turn me into some kind of universal mother, probably with a big belly and my breasts become fountains. That's the role which is my chief claim to their affections. No, they won't do statues until I die. I think they are waiting for me to go to Bevelle and sink a dagger in my heart at your shrine in the main temple. Shall I do that?"

He caught her playfully by the neck and shook her gently, "I, your deity, absolutely forbid you to do such a silly thing. You are to live as long as possible and tell the truth about the both of us. This cult thing is getting out of hand."

"You're right. They've made you something you never were and have forgotten the traits that make you what you actually are. In turning you into a deity, they've left out the human courage and dignity that I really worshipped."

"Let there be no talk of worship between us. We're both human and that's enough. Can you help me fight back against this obscenity?"

"I'll try. Now let's not talk about any of that. I want to just feel you near me and look at you. Remember the rules."

"Yes, always the rules." He led her down the glowing trail to the small clearing behind the house of the Elder. "Rest here; the moss is very soft and comfortable and the trees make excellent backrests."

She sat down and beckoned to the two youngsters who wandered in from the surrounding foliage. "Ewain and Arden, come sit with your father and me."

"Yes, mother", the two little boys spoke as one. "It's good to see you again and be together. Have you seen the statue in the center of the village? It kind of looks like our father."

Nooj threw his head back and laughed. "Does it have a cane and spectacles, then?"

"Yessir."

"In that case, let it be. Just don't start taking it seriously."

"Oh, we never would. You're our father, not a god. Come sit by our mother and let's be family together."

Nooj lowered himself to the moss and turned to LeBlanc with a smile. "I think this has turned into your dream." He gestured at the twin infant boys, gurgling and waving their pudgy fists in the moonlight near where they sat.

LeBlanc laid her palm against the side of his face, "I do believe you're right. Do the same rules still hold?"

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Nooj turned restlessly in his sleep, as though troubled by unseen phantasms. LeBlanc gently reached over, stroking his face, and waited for his eyes to open.

"Were you dreaming bad things again, my love?"

He caught her hand and brushed it with his lips, "I don't know. I don't remember. Was I being a nuisance?"

"No, you just seemed bothered and I thought you might want to start over."

"Excellent thought," he murmured as he drew her close and felt her warm breath against his neck as he slipped back into sleep.


End file.
